Daily Archives: September 17, 2011

European finance ministers ended a two-day meeting here Saturday without making substantial progress toward solving the region’s debt crisis, or any pledge to recapitalize Europe’s banks.

The meetings were highlighted by the appearance by Timothy F. Geithner, the United States treasury secretary, whose advice, and warnings, drew a tepid reaction from the euro zone’s finance ministers. And Mr. Geithner’s rejection Friday of a European idea for a global tax on financial transactions prompted a debate about whether Europe should go ahead on its own.

Meanwhile, with an October deadline looming for international lenders to agree to the release of around 8 billion euros, or $11 billion, of aid to Greece, without which it could default on its debt, George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, canceled a trip to the United States.

Just three months into its launch, the New Media Project at Union Theological Seminary has already gained footing in exploring improved ways in which pastors and lay leaders might use new technologies to strengthen their communities.

“This increasingly rich theological discussion seems to be striking a chord of interest among religious leaders who are thinking about the impact of technology on religious life,” said the Rev. Verity A. Jones, project director and former publisher and editor of DisciplesWorld magazine. “I am encouraged that the discussion is getting some traction.”

”˜This is not just a “theological formula”. If we left it out, we would have a Word of God that is separated from God; we would make God the prisoner of our thoughts or theologies. We would have a Word with which we could operate, a Word we could “use”, a Word we could judge. But it could not be the Word of God, the Word which operates with us, uses us, and judges us. Our work in the Church, therefore, can only be a service to this one life-giving Word of God. The clearest expression of this truth is the fact that there is no other way to preach than to preach an “expository sermon”, and even this is not a guarantee’.

Christina Gustavsson says she loves school. But her teachers have had a tough time educating her.

In her freshman year at Kennett High School, 15-year-old Christina racked up five months’ worth of absences and never completed a full day of school. Sometimes, she had difficulty remembering assignments, completing homework or even waking up in time for school. Other times, she didn’t.

Christina has chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition whose symptoms have long confounded many medical professionals and now pose peculiar challenges for educators as more adolescents are diagnosed with it. In a time of tight budgets, public schools must consider how far to go to accommodate students with CFS and a range of so-called hidden disabilities that are difficult to observe, evaluate or understand.

AFTER GOD HAD carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and led the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, there living among us) to give the one-half of his estate (it being in all about Â£700) toward the ing of a college, and all his library. After him, another gave Â£300; others after them cast in more; and the public hand of the state added the rest. The college was, by common consent, appointed to be at Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard College.The edifice is very fair and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall where they daily meet at commons, lectures, and exercises; and a large library with some books to it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for and possessed by the students, and all other rooms of office necessary and convenient with all needful offices thereto belonging. And by the side of the college, a fair grammar school, for the training up of young scholars and fitting of them for academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe they may be received into the college of this school. Master Corlet is the master who has very well approved himself for his abilities, dexterity, and painfulness in teaching and education of the youths under him. Over the college is Master Dunster placed as president, a learned, a conscionable, and industrious man, who has so trained up his pupils in the tongues and arts, and so seasoned them with the principles of divinity and Christianity, that we have to our great comfort (and in truth) beyond our hopes, beheld their progress in learning and godliness also. The former of these has appeared in their public declamations in Latin and Greek, and disputations logic and philosophy which they have been wonted (besides their ordinary exercises in the college hall) in the audience of the magistrates, ministers, and other scholars for the probation of their growth in learning, upon set days, constantly once every month to make and uphold. The latter has been manifested in sundry of them by the savory things of their spirits in their godly versation; insomuch that we are confident, if these early blossoms may be cherished and warmed with the influence of the friends of learning and lovers of this pious work, they will, by the help of God, come to happy maturity in a short time.Over the college are twelve overseers chosen by the General Court, six of them are of the magistrates, the other six of the ministers, who are to promote the best good of it and (having a power of influence into all persons in it) are to see that everyone be diligent and proficient in his proper place.

O God, by whose grace thy servant Hildegard, enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and shining light in thy Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and may ever walk before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.

O Lord Christ, Son of the living God, who at the last assize wilt acknowledge all deeds of mercy to others as done unto thee: Grant, in this world of sin and pain and want, that we may never pass by the poor and helpless whose cry is thine own; for the honour of thy holy name.

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

Bishop John Rodgers remembered John Stott as “monumental” in importance, especially as a leader for evangelical Anglicans worldwide. He also played a significant role in the founding of Trinity School for Ministry. It was John that put forth the Rt. Rev. Alf Stanway’s name for consideration as the first Dean and President of the school. He also accompanied the Rev. John Guest on a visit to the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, to present the vision of starting a “school for ministry” in his diocese. Finally, John Stott and J. I. Packer were both consulted in the development of Trinity’s Statement of Faith.

Retirement plans and living standards for nearly half a million South Carolinians are in the hands of state politicians.

On the line are cost-of-living increases, the number of years public employees must work before they earn retirement pay and future contribution rates, all of which stand to change as the state’s top elected officials try to figure out a way to deal with the retirement system’s $17 billion funding mess.

Risky investment strategies and too-generous retirement benefits over the years coupled with the recession have been blamed by fiscal watchdogs as the reason the state’s pension plan has long-term stability problems.